WASHINGTON â€” Bowing to pressure, President Barack Obama intends to permit continued sale of individual insurance plans that have been canceled because they failed to meet coverage standards under the health care law, officials said Thursday.

The decision was designed to ease the impact on millions of consumers who have received cancellation notices in recent weeks, and also to try to redeem a presidential promise that anyone who wanted to keep his coverage under the law would be allowed to do so.

An announcement was expected in late morning.

Officials said the president would announce that insurers could continue to sell existing individual policies to current customers for 2014, even in cases of plans that had been ruled inadequate.